Parker Lot
Parker Lot 'is a webcomic that began May 30, 2009, written and illustrated by BuddyComics. The comic features a middle school student named Matt Parker, the titular character, and his life at school, home, and in his hometown, with his best friends Jim, Scooter Williams, and Robby the Robot and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Parker. The comic features regular comedy, slapstick humor, and even dark humor with graphic violence sometimes a subject. The comic has been running since it first began and currently airs twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. The comic began as a pilot called "Drugs" which featured a college student on a trip in his basement. That then inspired a short strip about a family called The Parkers and then Parker Lot, which changed slightly before becoming a webcomic. The comic has been added to several sites such as deviantART, Flickr, Tumblr, and it even got a wiki. Parker Lot has recieved positive reviews based on the humor of the comics and the characters and concept in each strip. The comic has many favorites and comments on each of its sites. Since it has began, the comic had its first story arc in October with The Parker Lot Halloween Special, which introduced Scooter Williams for the first time. As of April 6, 2011, there have been 158 comics posted after the total of comics for 2009 was 29 and the total for 2010 was 101. More story arcs have been planned for Parker Lot with the main characters going to the moon, Matt's birth, and the introduction of the Parker family's new dog with possible guest comics or even a crossover with another comic, an idea since the comic began. Origins ''Main articles: "Drugs" and "Parker Lot (original concept)" After struggles to make a new project, BuddyComics made a short cartoon called "Drugs" in March 2009 on his computer. After long work, BuddyComics abandoned the cartoon and left it unfinished. However, in May that year, he designed a little comic for fun called '''The Parkers, featuring a family of two parents (Wally Parker and Susan Parker) a middle school student (Matt Parker), an older brother, and a younger brother. The idea was changed a little bit, without the brothers, and featured Matt and other kids who would become Jim, Scooter Williams, and Robby the Robot in a secret club. He later added more kids such as football players, cool kids, nerds, and teachers. The comic featured a new style of cartooning other than his previous comics. Then that month, after small edits on characters and new synopsis, Parker Lot debuted on deviantART with a few promotional images and two comic strips. A YouTube account was created also, for animations to be added later. The comic proved to be successful with many people asking when Parker Lot would begin. The comic later made its way to such sites as DrunkDuck, SheezyArt, Newgrounds, SmackJeeves, Flickr, Tumblr, and many others. Sypnosis The comic deals with the life of Matt Parker, his parents, best friends Jim and Scooter, and other people he meets in life. He ends up in much trouble with the conflicts Jim gets the two into. His two parents do not understand him, neither do his best friends Jim, who is unusually unintelligent than Matt, or Scooter, who is the smartest student and his class and proved it by building a robot which he named Robby. Matt is usually at school having problems with his teachers and sometimes tries to fit in with the real world. The comic usually has stories and as of October 2010, it takes place in Dayon, Ohio, a parody of the real life Dayton, Ohio. Other recurring plot-lines were added to the series later on, such as the addition of Matt's stalker, Sandra Summers. Themes Parker Lot is an average comedy strip, which features slapstick comedy and double entendres throughout each comic. Some comedy can be very dark, such as Jim ripping off his own arm after misunderstanding that Matt needed a hand. Some comedy however, is more Looney Tunes-like humor such as Jim getting crushed by an anvil instead of slipping on a banana in front of him. The character Matt is given a typical personality of feeling one of his own and sometimes misunderstood by others. The comic also deals with average problems and sometimes parodies real topics in life. Characters Main article: List of characters , Abraham Lincoln, Raphael Vinci, Future Scooter, South Soldier, Sandra Summers, a Constructoid, TURDIS, Joe Mama, Future Robby, Future Jim, Mrs. Scald, BuddyComics, Bully, Dr. Russo, Tommy, Dr. Williams, Wally Parker, Susan Parker, Principal Fredericks, Scooter Williams, Matt Parker, Jim, Matt's Dog, another Constructoid, Maurice, Robby the Robot, and Petey Pencil)]] *'Matt Parker' is a middle school student and main character, aged about 12. He likes video games, cartoons, but isn't the best student in his class. He has two parents, his mom and dad, and a wide family tree. His best friend is Jim, who is less smarter than him and Matt usually gets in trouble Jim causes. However, they remain good friends overall. He wears a green shirt, jeans, and wavy, black hair. His full name is a combination of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of South Park fame, as a homage. **First appearance: #001 - School(May 30, 2009) *'Jim' is Matt's best friend, the same age as Matt. He is the worst student in the class and often gets hurt or catches on fire. His problems usually get Matt involved and he has to find a way out of trouble. Sometimes, he goes to great lengths to rip off his entire arm. He appears the most, next to Matt, who is the lead character. He wears a gray sweatshirt, jeans, and seems to have a 50's-like blonde hair. **First appearance: #006 - Lending (June 24, 2009) *[[Scooter Williams|'Scooter Williams']] is the smartest student in the entire class and the whole school. He has more different intrests than his peers, such as studying, reading, and schoolwork. He once built a robot in the Robotics class at his school whom he would name Robby. Scooter won the Nobel Prize for Physics for this accomplishment and making one of the first robots ever. He has hair similar to Matt's, has a red-yellow striped shirt, jeans, and is the only one of his friends to wear glasses. **First appearance: #017 - Frightening (October 5, 2009) *'Robby the Robot '''is an award-winning robot that is considered one of the first ever. He was built by Scooter in 2004 in the Robotics class. This achievement later got Scooter the Nobel Prize for Physics. Robby is actually smarter than Scooter, featuring unlimited information that is able to be reached. Robby has tentacle-like arms and also has a red torso that looks like a shirt. **First appearance: #045 - Splash (February 24, 2010) *'Walter "Wally" Parker' and 'Susan Woodman Parker, better known as '''Mr. and Mrs. Parker, are Matt's parents. Walter Parker met Susan Woodman in a resturant when she was a waitress. They married in 1989, and had a child eight years later, who they named Matt. Matt's parents do not seem to understand Matt at all. In fact, they can get quite annoyed with him when he doesn't follow directions exactly or misplaces things. **First appearance: #005 - Glue (Mrs. Parker) and #007 - Playing (Mr. Parker) Comics Main article: List of comics Comic strip The comic currently airs in short, three-panel strips that start with the event in the first, climax in the second, and punch-line in the third. Comics are posted weekly, although they are sometimes delayed. Some instances of delay include a nearly-month long hiatus of Parker Lot, when the design was changed to avoid confusion of another comic. Sometimes, comics are split into parts of a big comic that continues within weeks. In 2010, the comic schedule was expanded to Sundays and Wednesdays, two of BuddyComics' favorite days so more comics can be made and also more room for the upcoming story arcs, starting with the thirty-first comic, which was part of The Birth of Matt. The 100th comic was on September 15, 2010, which interrupted Jim and Robby's Excellent Adventure. In 2011, the schedule was expanded once again to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Story arcs For certain times, story arcs are the focus of the strip. Some story arcs include the first two comics which were together as two parts of one long story arc of Matt's first day of school. The two comics were only two of the comics originally made for the original concept of Parker Lot. The first official story arc of Parker Lot was the Halloween special. The arcs that followed were The Birth of Matt, Matt on the Moon, Jim and Robby's Excellent Adventure, Robby's Rival, and many more are in the works. Format The comic from the first all the way to the end of the Halloween special was in regular comic strip form, with white and simple letters that said, "Parker Lot, created by BuddyComics". Before the Special ended, BuddyComics premiered a new look to look more updated with black colors and green letters with the original title and including they year that the comic was made, which was 2009 at the time of the new format. For the first anniversary, a new format started with the seventy-third comic, the comic exactly one year from the first, which was much larger and had a 8-bit font theme, but remained with the same colors as the previous format. On occasions, the panels in the comic can be from one, two, four, or six. Production BuddyComics makes his comics with MS Paint and sometimes, if necessary, edits them on Paint.NET. He makes the comics two times a week and sometimes they end being made daily or even monthly. He says that the easiest character to draw is Jim and the hardest is Scooter. He also says drawing Matt and Scooter is a very difficult task when doing so. He usually makes in .bmp or .png file so it's easier to edit and he only adds .jpg and .gif for the final edit. Making a comic takes only about a few minutes and in some cases, for even a hour. BuddyComics mostly draws with his laptop but finds a regular home computer the best to draw with. BuddyComics often adds himself in the comic sometimes as a prominent character or in crowd scenes, which is among BuddyComics' favorite type of art to do. In the first twenty comics of Parker Lot, the design of the comic strip resembled a newspaper comic strip with all white and the words, "Parker Lot - Created by BuddyComics". After The Halloween Special, the comic went through a new format with darker colors and a black background. The font was changed at the top with green and the words, "Created by BuddyComics, 2009-2010" was added at the bottom. The font in each speech bubble was changed to look more modern, from "Arial Black" to "Corbel" to "Arial" on Windows Vista. The drawing period for Parker Lot usually takes about a hour or even less, as BuddyComics sets a deadline to upload the comic by either Tuesday or Saturday at 9:00PM as people from the east coast read the comic. Sometimes BuddyComics delays it by an hour or later, since he usually has plans. In designing each comic, he designs it out on random days, ranging from one day to making the comic or even half a year. Shading is another detail used sometimes in the comic, but only used in special detailed drawing or in times showing campfires, such as an animation. BuddyComics writes and draws the whole comic himself, with almost no help, not counting guest comics. The first two comics, the eighth, ninth, and tenth comic, and the one hundred and first comic were drawn on a different computer on Windows XP's Paint, as opposed to the usual Windows Vista Paint from comics three to seven, eleven to one hundred, and one hundred two to all the comics that followed. The main reasons for being drawn on a different computer is when BuddyComics is away or his computer is unavailable to him. The first two were drawn since it was the only computer available to BuddyComics after he planned Parker Lot. Influences See also: Cultural references The main influences of Parker Lot are the styling and humor of Edd Gould, creator of Eddsworld, who he added as a cameo in the first comic posted. Some other people who inspired BuddyComics into animating include Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, Seth McFarlane of Family Guy, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park, whose names inspired Matt's full name. The first look of Parker Lot looked more like Eddsworld and the second look resembled more Simpsons-like eyes. Matt's appearance was based on BuddyComics' best friend, who happens to be a fan of the comic. Matt's personality was based more on Malcolm in the Middle, however. Some of the comedy and slapstick humor came from Tom and Jerry-era cartoons from Hanna-Barbera and Tex Avery. Many parodies have been added to shows, movies, video games, comics, and paintings in drawings and the comics of Parker Lot. BuddyComics also claims the animated series, "Phineas and Ferb" with a majority of kids in its main cast and its humor that makes it popular among many kids and teenagers, helped inspire him to make Parker Lot. Media BuddyComics has made more media for Parker Lot, such as a web game to be finished called "Parker-Man", which features Matt in Pac-Man's place with Jim as the ghosts. A compilation book of the the first comics of Parker Lot is also in the works and is expected to be finished in a long time. BuddyComics is also in the works of a possible animated series made in Flash or even a feature-length film, which BuddyComics has considered making. Reception and influence BuddyComics has recieved, such as this picture featuring the main cast, drawn by Moon-manUnit-42 on deviantART]] The comic opened to generally positive reviews on all of its sites with many positive favorites, comments, ratings, and watchers/subscribers on the official channels. Even Edd Gould, of Eddsworld fame, commented positively on one of BuddyComics' videos on YouTube. Some other fans include some of BuddyComics' real-life friends or friends from YouTube or deviantART. The comic has also had high anticipation for upcoming comics and even the Halloween Special. The comic has even built up a large fanbase with some fan art being made by such users as Moon-manUnit-42, one of BuddyComics' friends who even drew BuddyComics and the main cast of Parker Lot in his own style. Another user, MewMewMinto1123, drew BuddyComics in real-life with a crayon and a marker and put it up on deviantART for all, including BuddyComics to see, BuddyComics said he was deeply flattered and was very happy to see how dedicated his fans were. National Matt Parker Day Main article: National Matt Parker Day To celebrate Parker Lot, BuddyComics made September 29, 2009 to be called '''National Matt Parker Day '''in honor the character Matt Parker. The celebrations included an art contest to make fan art of Parker Lot and many other small celebrations. See also *BuddyComics *The BuddyComics and Turtwig70 Show *Drugs External links *http://www.parkerlot.tk *http://www.parkerlot.deviantart.com *http://www.buddycomics.tumblr.com *http://www.flickr.com/photos/52385150@N04/ Category:Featured Articles Category:Webcomics Category:BuddyComics